xvil] 
ASCENT OF ASAMAYAMA. 
349 
thoughtful host at Kiisatsii had lent us. On the other side of 
the passage our hago bearers and guide passed the night crowd¬ 
ing round a log fire made on a stone foundation in the middle 
of the floor. The hago bearers were protected from the very 
perceptible night cold only by thin cotton blouses. In order to 
warm them I ordered an abundant distribution of sahi, a piece 
of generosity that did not cost very much, but which clearly won 
me the undivided admiration of all the coolies. They passed 
the greater part of the night without sleep, with song and jest, 
with their sahi bottles and tobacco pipes. We slept well and 
warmly after partaking of an abundant supper of fowl and eggs, 
cooked in different ways by Kok-San with his usual talent and 
his usual variety of dishes. 
We had been informed that at this place we would hear a 
constant noise from the neighbouring volcano, and that hurtful 
gases (probably carbonic acid) sometimes accumulated in such 
quantities in the neighbouring woods that men and horses would 
be suffocated if they spent the night there. We listened in vain 
for the noise, and did not observe any trace of such gases. All 
was as peaceful as if the glowing hearth in the interior of the 
earth was hundreds of miles away. But we did not require the 
evidence of the column of smoke which was seen to rise from 
the mountain top, which formed the goal of our visit, or of 
the inhabitants who survived the latest eruption, to come 
to the conclusion that we were in the neighbourhood of an 
enormous, still active volcano. Everywhere round our resting- 
place lay heaps of small pieces of lava which had been thrown 
out of the volcano (so-called lapilli), and which had not yet had 
time to weather sufficiently to serve as an under-stratum for 
any vegetation, and a little from the hut there was a solidified 
lava stream of great depth. 
Next day, the 4th October, we ascended the summit of the 
mountain. At first we travelled in hago over a valley filled 
with pretty close wood, then the journey was continued on foot 
